Striking a Chord: An Interview with Jessica Pratt

January 27, 2015

The first thing that you notice when you listen to Jessica Pratt’s music is her extremely unique voice. It is instantly recognizable. It has a light spiritual hauntedness that makes her lyrics dance, flicker and fade like the last few seconds of an 8mm home movie. In her melodies and guitar picking, you can hear the ghost of Nick Drake and the lyrical heartbrokenness of a country ballad – all with a slight hint or twang of Marty Robbins Americana. Today marks the release of Pratt’s second album – entitled On Your Own Love Again (Drag City). The album is slightly more ebullient, albeit with a streak of melancholy, and perhaps more kaleidoscopic than her self-titled debut album, which was recorded by Tim Presley – of the band White Fence – on a label that he created solely to release Pratt’s music. In the following interview, Pratt talks about how Ariel Pink changed the way she approaches music and how Los Angeles has affected her recording process.

AUTRE: A lot of musical artists have very specific inspirational references that shaped the sound of their music – can you name one artist that you discovered that blew your mind; an artist that really floored you?

JESSICA PRATT: Though I feel I’ve been influenced by a fairly wide array of artists, there are some that make a special imprint on you. Paul Williams is a guy who’s song structures and approach to pop melodies have always struck a chord with me. Even though his sound is pretty smooth, he’s got a kinda weird voice and I like that blend of conventionality and off-kilter. Marianne Faithfull’s 1971 Rich Kid Blues is a major vocal influence I couldn’t deny. But, in 2011 I went to a small Ariel Pink show. He played mostly stuff off of Before Today and seeing the way he performed those songs forever changed the way I thought about and approached making music, pure and simple.

AUTRE: Living in San Francisco and then Los Angeles – how have those two places shaped your music or have they had any influence at all?

PRATT: I think it’s impossible for your environment to not in some way affect the things you create, although in what ways specifically I may not have an accurate read on yet. Coming to Los Angeles was, in the beginning, a bit like relocating to a minimally-inhabited island somewhere. I spent most of my time alone in the first few months writing and recording what is the bulk of the new record.

AUTRE: I saw on your Instagram that you met Van Dyke Parks – I think the caption was “Van Dyke God Dang Parks” – what is it like meeting your heroes; does it make you feel like you are becoming more established?

PRATT: Well, I haven’t met a ton of them, but, I think maybe it says more about the magic and usefulness of the internet as a tool, if used correctly. But yes, it’s also just quite remarkable living in LA; the odds of these occurrences are just are greatly increased as there’s so many creative people living and working here. Meeting Van Dyke was more just happenstance, actually, BUT, yeah, I think the fact that he’d heard my music via an NY Times post and liked it is what granted me momentary entrance into that world.

AUTRE: Naturally, people like to pigeonhole musicians that come out with a guitar and just the purity of their voice – what do you say to those people?

PRATT: It really doesn’t bother me. Pigeonholing, comparisons and labeling is an inherent part of music journalism and people’s processing of music. It’s like matching shapes. Where’s that red one gunna go? I like hearing the range of things people pick out of it. Sometimes it’s a revelation and sometimes it’s just fun.

AUTRE: What’s next – any plans for a “Play it fucking loud…” moment and a full electric band?

PRATT: I’d love to have a Band-grade backing band, but so far I’ve been rehearsing with a guitarist for my upcoming tours. Together hopefully we’ll be rendering the songs live in a sonically smooth, mildly psychedelic sort of fashion. Collaborating and playing music with others is very new to me, so I’m just testing the waters.

You can purchase On Your Own Love Again in multiple formats here. Interview and text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Olivia Locher On Her Group Show 'Pheromone Hotbox'

January 22, 2015

We first featured the work of Olivia Locher back in 2011. Over the years, her work and photographic identity has matured, but has never lost that brilliant collision of erotic and surreal – with a feminine mystique that blossoms with rich hues and jarring contexts. Tonight, Locher is included in a group exhibition – entitled Pheromone Hotbox – with four other women who have that same mystique: Amanda Charchian, Shae Detar, Marianna Rothen and Aneta Bartos. Together, they are exploring female sexuality and womanhood that is counterclockwise from the predominant male perspective, which aims more to objectify than to celebrate. In the following short interview, Locher talks female empowerment and learning to trust her artistic ideas.

AUTRE: What can we expect tomorrow night at your show Pheromone Hotbox at Steven Kasher Gallery?

OLIVIA LOCHER: A lot of girl power! I’m showing with four incredible female artists, who each have their own unique voice and style. The work all comes together fearlessly representing womanhood. It’s a great show, I’m really honored to be included in it.

AUTRE: How does your work represent some of the ideas behind the show - "post-feminist" ideologies or exuding female sexuality, or otherwise?

LOCHER: The pieces I’m showing are a really colorful, playful mixture of work. There are many different concepts though out the individual pieces, but these particular photographs meet sharing a universal theme focused around empowering women.

AUTRE: You have been finding a very unique voice in your photography over the last few years - how do you think your work as evolved or changed the most?

LOCHER: I have learnt to trust my ideas and act on them, sometimes impulsively.

AUTRE: What's next?

LOCHER: I am always working on a few projects at once. I am just finishing up a two year long series titled, “I Fought the Law”.

Pheromone Hotbox at Steven Kasher Gallery in NYC – featuring Olivia Locher, Amanda Charchian, Shae Detar, Marianna Rothen and Aneta Bartos – opens tonight. The show will be on view until February 28, 2015. Interview and text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

The Fetish of Desire: An Interview with Nino Cais

December 23, 2014

I first noticed Nino Cais’s work at Art Basel in Miami. Amongst the literal miles and miles of gallery booths and art, Cais’s work – presented by São Paulo based gallery Central Galeria de Arte – had a magnetic quality. His “fruit series” – which includes photo collages of bright ripe bananas, mangos, eggplants and exotic fruit covered in female panty hose, juxtaposed with nude glamor portraits – is a treatise on the temporality that culture places on female youth, beauty and desire. In other works, he plays with neoclassicism and roman iconography – one statue is half woman of antiquity and half stack of porcelain plates. We got a chance to ask Cais a few questions about his art – in the following interview he talks about choosing art versus priesthood and some of his biggest artistic influences.

AUTRE: Your mother was a seamstress and you grew up in the suburbs of São Paulo, where did you find your inspirations and how were you introduced to art?

NINO CAIS: My relation to art was, and still is, very intuitive. Since I was a kid, I used to manufacture my own toys with some of my mother’s materials, such as fabric scraps. I never thought I would be a professional artist – I didn’t even have a close relationship to art, nor did I visit exhibitions.

At first I entered the seminary to become a priest. I used to decorate the Church’s events and festivities. One of the priests of the seminary was convinced that I had to study art and he managed to get a scholarship for me to study in Santa Marcelina, an Art School in São Paulo. It was then that I started to understand everything I had been experiencing as a kid and young adult and started to have a more theoretical background, to think of art in a more consistent way and to start to elaborate on my production as an artist.

AUTRE: Who were some of the first artists who really expanded your mind – artists who you identified with and were inspired by?

CAIS : At the art school I met some artists that were of great importance in my personal and artistic development. One of the teachers I directly identified with was Led Catunda. Afterwards, other contemporary artists became an important reference for me, namely Constantin Brancusi, Richard Serra, Erwin Wurm, Cindy Sherman, Sam Taylor Wood and Nick Cave. In a more historical perspective, I was always fascinated by Mantegna and Giotto’s paintings. I also have a great admiration for some surrealist artists such as Man Ray, René Magritte and Marx Ernst. More recently, I am very much interested in some African artists such as Samuel Fosso and Yinka Shonibare.

AUTRE: You studied dramatic arts for roughly 8 years, how do you think that has inspired your work?

CAIS: Although I don’t really conceive a direct continuity between my experience in dramatic arts and my career as an artist, I do think that some theatrical elements are recurrent in my work. First of all, some of my installations are very scenographic and have an underlying dramatic tension, as they suggest a narrative and/or an imminent fall suspended in time. One other convergence of my artistic practice that could also be related in some way to theater is the fact that most of the figures in my work, and especially my self-portrait photographs, enact a persona that mingles with the surrounding objects, and that become some kind of entity. Note for example that my face is always hidden by an object or by a posterior intervention on the image.

AUTRE: Can you talk a little bit about your current ‘fruit’ series – I saw a few of these works in Miami and they are really stunning?

CAIS: My “fruit series” is centered on the idea of superposition of different levels and the nature of images. The starting point of this series is a recent research about the feminine figure. The pieces juxtapose images of fruits and iconic and beautiful women that harken a model of grace and sensuality. If both the fruit and the women relate to abundance, fertility and life, they are ephemeral and fleeting bodies that fade with the passing of time. In this sense, these images work as a kind of still life.

AUTRE: What’s next?

CAIS: I am working on a solo show that will take place at Central Galeria de Arte, in São Paulo, in February. The central axis of this exhibition is garments and how they relate to different cultures, how they drive projections, clichés and fetishes.

Text and interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. You can view more of Nino Cais's work by visiting the website of Central Galeria de Arte.

Public Access: An Interview with Glenn O'Brien

December 17, 2014

Before he became the Dapper Dan with lily-white hair and a suit as crisp as the white tablecloths at Mr. Chow’s, Glenn O’Brien was a chronicler of the Golden Age of the New York avant-garde and the subculture underground of the 1960s and 70s. He was the first editor of Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine. He was also, briefly, the editor-at-large of High Times magazine. But what he is best known for is TV Party – a public access cable show that featured some of the first appearances of artists like Jean Michel Basquiat, Klaus Nomi and Blondie. After 30 years, O’Brien has released three brand new episodes of TV Party on YouTube. Shot at locations such as MoMA Ps1, Le Baron New York, and Lafayette House, the new TV Party – a “television show that's a cocktail party, but which is also a political party” – features a number of luminaries and a smorgasbord of who's whos. In the following brief interview, Glen O’Brien offers a bit of fashion advice and talks TV Party and why it is always important to look ahead.

AUTRE: You were a part of a fascinating era in New York – with Andy Warhol’s Factory, Basquiat, the birth emerging music scenes like hip hop and punk, a pre-gentrified New York – do you miss those days?

GLENN O'BRIEN: Well, it was exciting and maybe a more interesting and inspiring community, and I prefer the spirit and tone of the art world then as opposed to now, but if you start to think that way you’re kind of doomed. I have to deal with the moment like everybody else and keep evolution going, so I don’t think too much about the past.

AUTRE: Can you remember when the idea for TV Party first came to you?

O'BRIEN: I always wanted to do a TV show. I have probably mentioned too much that I loved Playboy’s Penthouse and Playboy After Dark, Hugh Hefner’s 2 shows, because they were in a party format that seemed a lot more cool than the typical talk show. The direct inspiration was going on a public access show, Coca Crystal’s If I Can’t Dance You Can Keep Your Revolution, and discovering that people had actually seen it. I was immediately motivated to create a public access show.

AUTRE: What can we expect from the newest episodes of TV Party – there are only a few online right now, are we going to see more in the future?

O'BRIEN: We want to move the party from city to city, place to place and have guests that aren’t the usual showbiz fare. We’ll see how much stamina we have.

AUTRE: Many people don’t know that you worked for High Times magazine – can you talk a little bit about that?

O'BRIEN: When I went to High Times it had a bigger circulation than Rolling Stone and seemed more interesting culturally—drugs aside. I was working at Playboy in Chicago and was desperate to move back to NY. They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Aside from some things dealing with Rasta, I didn’t have much connection to the pharmaceutical aspect of the magazine. I was kind of the culture czar.

AUTRE: You are known as a 'style guru' – what is one piece of fashion or style advice you can offer?

O'BRIEN: I guess my basic advice is don’t follow fashion; express yourself.

AUTRE: What’s next?

O'BRIEN: Writing a couple of books. Working on some films and TV Party. The usual.

Text and interview by Oliver Kupper for Autre. You can visit Glenn O'Brien's website to read poems and other writings. You can also view all three episodes of TV Party here.

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Wayward Cognitions: An Interview With Ed Templeton

December 15, 2014

Mangled, bloodied and raw – Ed Templeton’s photography is a candid document of the halcyon days of youth and rebellion. Anarchy in the U.S.A. reigns supreme with open wounds, smoking youths and suburbia turned upside down, with all the coins shaken loose. There are also private moments captured in Templeton’s photography – of his wife Deanna and his contradictorily quiet life in the laid back hamlet of Huntington Beach, California. As a pro skater, Templeton has been given the unique opportunity to travel the world – luckily he has captured everything along the way. In his new monograph of photography, entitled Wayward Cognitions, Templeton curates images from his archive spanning nearly twenty years. Templeton not only shoots on film, but he also prints his own photography in his home darkroom – an anomalous practice lost to the ages. In the following interview, Templeton talks about Wayward Cognitions, the dichotomy between the skate world and art world, and why he is sticking to film.

AUTRE: Can you remember when you first picked up a camera and started documenting your life?

ED TEMPLETON: It was 1994, I had been shooting photos as a tourist like anyone might, but I wasn’t taking it seriously. I had some sort of epiphany where realized I needed to document my life and the lives of people around me. I had already been a pro skater for 4 years getting to travel the world and be paid to skateboard, I thought, "who gets to do that?" I figured there was something there, a story that needed to be told, and I had already wasted 4 years! After that I was very strict about having a camera at all times and ready to shoot whatever happened. Soon after the initial idea to document the subculture of skating I started shooting way more than skateboarders. Skateboarding took me all over the world, it gave be a travel bug and a desire to shoot photos of the people and places I visited that was a wider view than just the people I was around.

AUTRE: There is such a stark dichotomy between the skate world and the art world where most of your art is collected and exhibited – what feels more like home to you?

TEMPLETON: I will always feel more comfortable around skaters I guess. That is how I grew up, and that is the world I have been a real part of. The art world is so much bigger, I'm just one little blip on a ocean sized screen. I think art and skating are very closely entwined, but it's true, speaking in monetary terms, there is a big gulf between art collectors and skaters. That can be weird at times, but in a good way. Nothing makes me happier than to be at an art opening filled with fancy art people in suits and nice dresses and then to see mixed in the crowd young people in hooodies carrying skateboards. Art is for everyone.

AUTRE: Did you ever imagine that your photography would be so widely noticed and appreciated?

TEMPLETON: Not at first. I was starting to collect photo books, and I was out shooting and documenting subcultures and places and could care less. I started shooting seriously in 1994, I first exhibited some photos along with my paintings in 1998. So I didn't feel confident at first. But as time went on, I would be shooting and collecting books of great photographers and holding my work up to theirs to see if I was developing and growing. At some point I started feeling very confident that I had done some good work, work worthy of being noticed. I had started showing photography in exhibitions to the point where it was way more about photos than painting. So I can't lie and say I didn't hope my photos would be noticed by a wider audience, but you have to just plug away and make good work, and participate in the world you want to be a part of. I was able to make a book, Golden Age of Neglect that I feel was a sort of calling card for me. Ever since then all I think about is making books. I just love photo books and want to make them and collect them and be part of that world.

AUTRE: Do you think that being a professional skateboarder allowed you more freedom and opportunities to take photographs?

TEMPLETON: It certainly got me around the world. I think seeing new places and cultures and environments helps to humanize you and gives you a bigger sample of what the world is really like. That helps develop your eye. Of course skating itself develops your eye too, in different ways, but ways that can be applied to shooting photos, like looking ahead, and being ready for obstacles. I use that when walking and shooting for sure, always looking way ahead to see whats coming at you, and being prepared to shoot when it comes near. My style of photography has come purely from doing other things in life. I never travelled somewhere just to take photos. All of my travel has been for skating or art shows, and I shoot wherever I happen to be going. Pro skating gives you freedom from having any set hours to work, and surrounds you with interesting people, so yes!

AUTRE: Who are some photographers that you look up to you?

TEMPLETON: Jim Goldberg, Garry Winogrand, Hank Wessel, Robert Frank, Tom Wood, Anders Petersen, Mark Cohen, Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, Alex Webb, Tobin Yelland, Larry Clark and Nan Goldin, the usual suspects I suppose. I like photographers who approach it like art, meaning outside of traditional photographic ways of presenting it, using collage, ephemera, writing, paint. I think David Hockney was great when he was doing photography, Peter Beard, Boris Mikhailov, Jim Goldberg, even Robert Frank, they all have presented photography from the position of an artist, not just a photographer.

AUTRE: You shoot on film and you develop your own photographs in your own darkroom – you shoot a lot of images, do you ever think about going digital and why is film so important in your work?

TEMPLETON: I like the way film looks, and I can afford it. Those are the major reasons. I'm not anti-digital, but I'm gonna shoot film and print traditionally as long as I can afford to and as long as they are making film. There's a hand done quality to a fiber print that is missing from digital forms. And I think going that extra mile in shooting film and having to focus and expose each shot old school style, and then making your own prints by hand pays off in the authenticity and feel it gives when the viewer sees it ultimately. This is just photo-nerd stuff, because I know that 99% of people do not give a shit how it was made. It's just for that 1% that will geek out on it, like I do when I see the master photographers work in person.

AUTRE: Your new book Wayward Cognitions is almost like a retrospective of sorts – what made you decide to go in that direction versus a more thematic direction like some of your previous monographs?

TEMPLETON: Most of my books have had a pretty specific theme, Teenage Smokers and Kissers are self explanatory, The Seconds Pass was all photos from a car, Deformer was all photos relating to or from suburbia, Litmus Test was all photos from Russia. So I wanted to just make a good ol' photo book. No theme, just photos. But It's not a retrospective because I chose all photos not printed in a book before. It's not an overview of work I made in the past, it's a story woven from my archive. When you shoot like me you amass a lot of photos. To me it's a shame that only a tiny portion of the photos you think are worthy might ever be seen. This type of book is a way to choose from that pool, with no limit on time or place or theme, and sequence the images in a way, very subtly, that a story, however vague, comes through. The name Wayard Cognitions is a more eloquent way if saying "Stray Thoughts" and that is what these photos are. Photos that do not fit in any theme or future project. Photos that have strayed from ever being seen, until now.

AUTRE: What’s next?

TEMPLETON: Onward to more books! I have plans to finally make my big book about my time documenting skate culture, a book on Catalina Island, a book with Deanna Templeton about the town we live in, Huntington Beach. Right now I'm working on a painting only show in April 2015 at Roberts and Tilton gallery. And I will be releasing a new zine and exhibiting some past zines at the LA Art Book Fair in January.

Text and interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Autre. You can pick up a copy of Wayward Cognitions HERE. You can also catch Ed Templeton at his book signing at Moca Grand Ave on December 18 – 250 South Grand Ave, Los Angeles.

LIVE LOVE DIE: A SHORT INTERVIEW WITH BRAD PHILLIPS

December 4, 2014

Canadian artist Brad Phillips' artwork elicits an immediate visceral reaction - like realizing your entire life is a joke and only God knows the punch line. His text-based works, which are composed in watercolor, are quickly becoming what he is best known for. But behind the striking, stinging, slap-you-in-the-face puns and plays on words, Phillips is a writer and a poet at heart - a writer that uses a grander lexicon to explore the darker meaning of life. On top of being a writer, Phillips is also a photographer. His new book of photography – Mother Nature Mother Creature – puts a twist on 1970s naturalist photography by following two women who undress and romp through a forest in the nude. You can also view Phillips’ stunning text-based work at Harper’s Books in the Hamptons. In the following interview, Brad Phillips talks about his obsession with literature and poking fun at Ryan McGinley.

AUTRE: Your works deals with a lot of love, death and suicide – why are those themes meaningful to you?

BRAD PHILLIPS: Well, I suppose these are classic 'big themes' - and for me my work is always personal, and love death and suicide are all things that I have had vast personal experiences with.

AUTRE: Your watercolors are predominantly text based – like subversive poems – how do those quotes come to you?

PHILLIPS: My watercolors are only predominantly text based in the last few months, primarily my watercolors have been figurative. Some of the paintings of text are taken from other sources, like the bible, but for the most part, I can't say exactly how they come to me. I'm far more interested in writing than I am in art. I publish a lot of writing, I've been obsessed with literature and language my whole life and also comedy. So much of it just comes to me spontaneously – sudden puns I come up with, bad jokes, one liners, like art in general, the source is usually a mystery to me, except that I know it begins somewhere in some dark recess of my mind.

AUTRE: You have a new book – called Mother Nature Mother Creature – can you tell us a little bit about your new publication?

PHILLIPS: I've painted from photographs for my entire career, but I don't think photography has much currency as an art anymore. I think it's been done to death. So I'd taken these photographs of my friends before I moved back to Toronto from Vancouver. I guess I was interested in making a parody of 'naturalist photography' from the seventies. I don't know that it comes across as being parody and also I wanted to sort of poke at artists like Ryan McGinley, who hire attractive models to appear to be his friends and then photograph them frolicking in the nude. For me it was a way to document two women: one is my best friend's wive, a mother of two kids, who were both raised in the west coast, just being naked hippies in the forest. It's pretty simplistic, which is what I see as one of the problems with photography. So for me photographs right now are ideally suited to being seen in books, not on gallery walls.

AUTRE: Is everything a joke or is the joke everything?

PHILLIPS: I'm not sure about this – some things are jokes, some things are deadly serious. The interesting part is to make what's deadly serious and turn it into a joke, and to take what's superficial and light and make it look serious.

Text and Interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. You can view Brad Phillips' exhibition Law and Order at Harper's Books until January 5, 2015. You can also purchase 'Mother Nature Mother' Creature here.

Subversive Narratives: An Interview With Ryan Heffington

November 28, 2014

Ryan Heffington has carved an extremely unique place in the world of dance and contemporary art. If you’ve seen the music video for Sia’s triple-platinum song Chandelier, you know Heffington’s work. If you’ve seen the Sigur Rós music video where Shia LaBeouf goes full frontal, you know Heffington’s work. But Heffington’s real magic exists in his spectacular live performances – where he uses the medium of modern dance and movement to paint a portrait of identity and culture in a fragmentary digital age. Next week, as part of Art Basel Miami, MAMA gallery will present Heffington’s premier of Wading Games – a performance that he describes as a “punk rock water ballet" – at the Ritz Carlton hotel. In the following interview, Heffington explains his upcoming performance in Miami and how dance can change the world.

AUTRE: Can you talk a little about your upcoming performance in Miami – you once described it as a “punk rock water ballet.” Is that an accurate description?

RYAN HEFFINGTON: Yes, the piece will live between a glorious ballet in terms of scale, and at moments aesthetically beautiful, but sharply contrasted by a subversive narrative where the dancers will have to fight from drowning over collectively taking part in a synchronized swim routine.

AUTRE: You have been thinking about this project for a long time – why is this particular project so meaningful to you?

HEFFINGTON: The fact that certain performative spectacles cling to my brain collecting momentum over the years creates a feeling of deep respect and attachment to the piece. I'm not sure exactly when this ballet pushed itself inside, but the element of potential danger, the symbology of over-flooding tears, and a certain societal class - all of this is so dramatic. It has spoken to me in my dreams and waking state as well - at this point it's a part of me and I cannot keep it a secret any longer.

AUTRE: Why is dance important in today’s contemporary artistic landscape?

HEFFINGTON: In this age of digital media, over-saturation of well most everything, dance claims it stake in that it is most simple in its form. Its the body expressing the mind. No need for tools, keyboards, audio accompaniment - just the human form. There is something inherently grounding about this. It's access is given once the being accepts their own invitation to do so - again no money, tools or experience is necessary. It's also powerful in terms of invigorating the soul and once you come to peace with that you dance like no one else on earth - think fingerprint - an endless amount of joy is yours. Really - imagine if every human danced for 1 hour a day, how that would change your life, your work space, your community, your nation, our world.

AUTRE:What do you hope to convey – or what kind of feelings do you want to emote – through your dancers and your choreography?

HEFFINGTON:In rehearsals, sometimes I squint when watching the piece in front of me. I know when I feel something from the bodies before me - I'll get a tingle or goosebumps or rays of energy - I know I've created something visceral and this is what I hope my audiences experience. I can make aesthetically arresting imagery - yet without playing to the heart I'm afraid people leave empty handed. We're over stimulated visually as a society - but to connect emotionally to people or art is how I want to live and have my work experienced.

Text and interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. MAMA gallery will present Ryan Heffington'sWading Games – with music by Banks and film installations by Osk – at the Ritz Carlton (pool) in Miami Beach as part of Art Basel Miami 2014 on Thursday, December 4 (rsvp@mama.gallery).

The Ecstatic Body: An Interview with Julius Smack

November 26, 2014

Under the stage persona Julius Smack, Peter Hernandez is part of a new wave of emerging artists that are trying to define their identity in a century that is trying to do just the same. Often wearing white jeans, his signature white face paint, a white shirt, and a tuft of blond curls hanging out of a white baseball hat worn backwards, Julius Smack combines the slow mortal pangs of Butoh with a sense of definitive post-internet Millennial angst. His performances cross boundaries between music and performance art and he will often sing his own songs, which are produced and released by his own record label – called Practical Records. Most of Smack’s recent songs were produced in his former home in San Francisco (he is now based in Los Angeles) and they have distinct political overtones. In the following interview, Julius Smack (Peter Hernandez) talks political performative art, his recent move to Los Angeles and why he uses Starbucks cups and yoga mats in some of his performances.

AUTRE: Who is Julius Smack?

JULIUS SMACK:Julius Smack is an awoken statue from antiquity that pontificates social and political messages through dance and song. In the past I used make-up to conflate an impression of a Grecian statue and Butoh dancer. I’d paint my face white and wear some white hair under a white hat. I explored vogue and butoh dance mostly at a historic drag bar in San Francisco called Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, where every Tuesday I presented a new track and a new choreography.

AUTRE: How would you define your genre of music – is it art or music?

SMACK: Maybe it’s Los Angeles, but I am beginning to see the two modes as one. I’m interested in music as art and vice-versa. I don’t think of the individual recordings of my music as art, but I think of the physical package of music as cassette or CD-R as being artful. That’s when it can be packaged and asserted as art with the accompanying liner notes and design. When I can convey a narrative arc, I think of the music as art. When I perform, I feel like I’m displaying artistic gestures. When I can give a whole Julius Smack performance, I think it’s art.

AUTRE: You recently moved from the Bay Area to Los Angeles – what prompted the move?

SMACK: I’ve long wanted to live here since I was a teenager because I listen to a lot of music from here. There's a wealth of possibility and invention here and that’s partly why I'm here. I’m witnessing exciting and new modes of performance all the time, where there’s little delineation between music or dance or theater. I’m also dating a performance artist and writer named Brian Getnick, who I met when I lived in San Francisco. Being here with him has really shaped my performance practice because we discuss ideas and possibilities and he equips me with rehearsal and studio space. He also has a great performance art journal called Native Strategies that I recommend to anyone curious about Los Angeles’ emergent performance art.

AUTRE:What can you expect from a Julius Smack performance – I read something about yoga mats and Starbucks cups?

SMACK: That performance was at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge in San Francisco. There’s a great party on Tuesday nights called High Fantasy. It’s an incubator for new performance coming out of the Bay Area. The night I used a yoga mat and Starbucks cups I performed a version of the song “Choices” from my new album. I arranged three members of the audience in poses that resembled Julius Smack. One person was in the pose of the Statue of Liberty, one was in a Thinking Man pose. Then I placed in their hands a Starbucks cup of varying sizes and directed the lyrics to them --"There's no time to make up your mind, you're not sure of it anyway." I was thinking of ways to delegate the performance to the audience. I’m interested in transforming a place into a performance space through movement and voice. There’s something really exciting about seeing someone step into a performance in their usual garb. What are the possibilities of the spontaneous and unchoreographed present?

AUTRE: What are your performances like lately?

SMACK: Lately my performances involve a deal of surprise and emergence, field recordings and live recordings. I want to affect space as clearly as possible and not to rely on pre-recorded music, which has begun to feel like a crutch for performance. There is so much possibility in witnessing a body in space! Am I going to pose against a wall? Am I going to hold an audience member? In what order will I jump, sing, and dance? To allow that kind of response to space, I have been doing more acapella performances that use field recordings and live instrumentation. At Human Resources last month I used a night vision camera that was operated and projected live as a reflection of the audience. Human Resources used to be a film cinema, but all the chairs have been stripped out and it’s just a big white cube with concrete floors and perfect reverb. So I did an acapella song and then used a keyboard live for my first time. It was so liberating - I don't intend on relying heavily on backing tracks.

AUTRE:Can you describe your new album Everyday Ballet?

SMACK: Most of those songs were crafted in my big bedroom in San Francisco, and then I had a lot of room and space and time for recording. I could focus on audio effects and to adjust synthesizer tracks in a dance music form. I was really inspired by the house dance music that pervades San Francisco's music scene - it was there that I discovered some of my greatest house influences, primarily Terre Thaemlitz. And I was also looking at themes of social justice, progressivism, and gentrification, which are so fundamental to San Francisco's depleting culture. There's a song titled "Living Social," and I illustrate an image of house flippers speculating on the value of the Victorian I was living in. The lyrics empathize with the house and its history and feeling. Or "I Say What I Want," which basically calls out those who claim to oppose climate change with rhetoric instead of action.

Text and interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. Photograph and video by Perry Shimon. You can learn more about Julius Smack by visiting his website. You can also purchase music – including his new album Everyday Ballet - here. If you are in Los Angeles, you can see Julius Smack perform on November 29, at the Handbag Factory, 1336 S Grand Ave Los Angeles, California

5 Questions for Jena Malone on the Eve of Her First Solo Show

November 21, 2014

Actress and musician Jena Malone is set to present her first solo photography exhibition titled, The Holy Other, at MAMA art gallery in downtown Los Angeles, running November 21st through 28th. Proceeds will benefit Girl Determined, a charity which works with young Burmese women to educate and empower them through societal shifts in their country. Malone’s debut solo series features 39 images she captured while traveling through Myanmar, Burma this past summer. She was deeply moved by the way of life and the vibrant culture she experienced. As she took photos throughout her trip, the artist was inspired by the many young women who were finding their voice against the new backdrop of democracy in their government. In the following interview, Jena talks about Myanmar and why photography is important to her.

AUTRE:Can you explain your series The Holy Other?

JENA MALONE:The Holy Other is a series of photographs I took while traveling to Myanmar this year. I was drawn there because it is a country on the brink of great change, from its government to its way of life. I wanted to see Myanmar before the modern world rushed in. It was actually a life changing experience for me.

AUTRE: Why is photography important?

JENA MALONE: Its important to me because it helps me see the world in new ways and it is an absolute time capsule for everything I might have forgotten.

AUTRE: Who are some of your photography icons?

JENA MALONE: Mary Ellen Mark , Nan Golden , Boris Mikhailov, Sebastiao Salgado.

AUTRE: What do you think about when you look through the viewfinder?

JENA MALONE:My mind goes blissfully blank actually.

AUTRE: What do you want people to feel when they look at your photographs....

JENA MALONE: I want them to feel whatever they want! Ahha! I just want the images to evoke stories, small intimate stories that touch on giant fundamental truths.

Interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. You can check out the opening reception for Jena Malone'ssolo show – The Holy Other – tonight at MAMA gallery (1242 Palmetto Street, Los Angeles). The show will run until November 28.

Liquid State: An Interview with Sculptor Jonathan Prince

November 20, 2014

The great cubist sculptor Jacques Lipchitz once said, “Copy nature and you infringe on the work of our Lord. Interpret nature and you are an artist.” This sentiment holds true for a lot of sculptors – those artists that borrow stone and bits of earth in the creation of eternal and impermeable monuments to their artistic vision. This sentiment is especially true for sculptor Jonathan Prince, whose father actually once took him to visit the studio of Jacques Lipchitz. Watching Lipchitz work – Prince became transfixed. Today, Prince works with materials like Corten steel, aluminum and bronze to create sculptural works that twist and tear at basic physical properties and our own perception. In the following interview, Prince talks about his recent sculptural series Liquid State and why there is more beauty in imperfection than perfection.

AUTRE: You have been making sculpture in stone and metal (stainless and Corten steel) since you were young, why is sculpture your mode of choice when you also experiment with other mediums?

JONATHAN PRINCE: I’m not sure why but - I have always had an affinity for three dimensional work. Perhaps it’s because a sculptural work inserts itself into the real world - maybe because there are innumerable angles to visualize the piece from. Whatever the reason - it has always made more sense for me to create a line in 3 dimensional space rather than trying to simulate that same gesture in a 2D world.

AUTRE: How do your experiments in design, photography, painting, and installation inform your sculpture for which you are known?

PRINCE: Regardless of the medium - I am always looking for a new way to inform myself and the viewer about alternative ways of seeing the world around us. If I am using photography - ink and paper or stainless steel - I am always trying to deepen my own investigation of a particular subject matter - to open my eyes and mind in a way that I have not done before. I’m not always successful at accomplishing that task - but I’m always on the hunt for it.

AUTRE: Can you explain the process of evolution regarding your current series Liquid State?

PRINCE: Almost all of my work through the years has looked at the boundaries between internal and external form or what we see on the surface but feel inside. My Liquid State series are the first works that I have done which seem to have no exterior skin - in other words - the forms are made from only internal material in a figurative sense. Liquid State refers to one of four states of matter : liquid - solid - gas and plasma. The works in this series explore the relationship between geometry and fluidity - creating forms that have their roots in geometry but ultimately assume only the barest vestiges of cube, sphere, cone or disc.

AUTRE: Where do you think your interest in the contrasting qualities of perfection and chaos come from?

PRINCE: It is always difficult for me to determine where a motivation comes from - what is important to me is to recognize the interest and look at it from as many vantage points as possible. The thesis that keeps coming back in my thoughts as I go through the process of making work is that - no matter how hard I try to create a perfected object or form - the real beauty of the piece is in the breaks. I believe the same is true in life.

AUTRE: What would you like viewers of your work to experience, whether it be intellectual or visceral?

PRINCE: My hope is that my work will provoke the viewer to have questions about what they are seeing and perhaps why this object - thing or image may be of interest to them. It is my belief that each person will have their own unique questions based on their individual life experience.

Intro text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. Interview and photographs by Abbey Meaker. You can view more of Jonathan Prince's work on his website.

An Interview with Tasya Van Ree at the Chateau Marmont

November 18, 2014

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Tasya van Ree steps out from her signature monochrome portraits and presents A State of Mind & the Affairs of its Games a hued-visual narrative, serving as an explication of the modern human mind. For one balmy Los Angeles evening, a salon was held in the penthouse of Chateau Marmont giving collectors, friends and fellow artists a desirable environment to appreciate her newest body of work. Twenty-one photographs in total, printed on metal, with images of dolls, toy trucks, Cracker Jack boxes, and other depictions of childhood entertainment. Titles of pieces include: The Glorified Self, To The Point of Being, and Sparks When Struck. The depth and attention to detail in the collection of photographs is grounded in a intellectually vivid perception that has underlined Tasya's photography throughout her career. Tasya graciously made some time to answer a few questions.

Autre: What inspired the narrative behind this exhibition?

Tasya van Ree: I wanted to visually translate society's function on the human psyche.

Autre: What was your childhood like?

Tasya: I was a wild and curious child with a lot of freedom. I experimented with everything that I could get into and everything that I could get my hands on. It's not much different from my adulthood.

Autre:Were your parents artists in any sense, did you have mentors early on, that had an artistic nature about them?

Tasya: They are artists in the fact that they have great imaginations, and they've always been a great inspiration to me. They both chose careers outside of the arts, but to have grown up with both parents showing you how to tap into your imagination was all I needed to know exactly what direction I wanted to pursue in life.

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Autre:What is currently inspiring you?

Tasya: The intelligence of the human body.

Autre:Does music and/or literature play a role in your creative process?

Tasya: There is always a creative conversation between art, literature and music. They are all moving pieces to a bigger form of consciousness. I can't help but be inspired by all of these parts when trying to interpret my own vision.

Autre: Does Los Angeles play a role in your work?

Tasya: I think Los Angeles has a high frequency of creative energy and I've found myself swimming through its channels.

Interview, text and photos by Douglas Neill. You can see more of Tasya Van Ree's art here.

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Art with Benefits: 5 Questions for Betty Tompkins

November 17, 2014

It’s easy to have impure thoughts when looking at Betty Tompkins’ large-scale photorealistic renditions of pierced clitorises, double penetrating phalluses, macro coital embraces and all manner of twisting and sinuous tongues taking turns on the human anatomy. Indeed, this is art with benefits. Starting with her first Fuck Painting in 1969, Tompkins has been exploring and confronting a black-bar culture that censors any reminder that our most basic instincts are to inseminate and to be inseminated. Right now you can catch Betty Tompkins’Kiss Paintings at 55 Gansevoort until December 15th. In this short interview, Betty talks about smuggling porn, the inception of her Fuck Paintings, and some of the strange reactions people have had to her work.

Autre: Can you describe the moment when you discovered the inspiration for your Fuck Paintings?

Betty Tompkins: Yes, I can. My first husband came with a set of porn photos that he had imported from Hong Kong. He was 12 years older than I was. At that time, it was totally illegal to use the US mail to transport porn. He rented a postal box in Vancouver BC, drove there from Everett WA where he lived, hid them in his car and crossed the border back into the US hoping he looked like an all-American boy. It was a different time. In 1969, about a month or so after we moved to New York, I was looking at them and realized that if i removed the hands, the feet, the heads, everything but the money shot, that what was left was abstractly beautiful and had the great punch of an aggressive subject matter. I did Fuck Painting #1 in 1969.

Autre:Do you think the internet and the proliferation of pornography has made your art more "available.”

Tompkins: Certainly more people can see my work and the internet has helped make it more accessible. There was always a lot of porn. It is just easier to get now. And getting it is more private.

Autre: Has anyone had any bizarre or strange reactions to one of your works?

Tompkins: At my 2007 show with Mitchell Algus, the main exhibition room had a double penetration painting in the prime spot. A man walked into the gallery, had no problem with the front room, walked into the back room, looked at that painting, yelled at the top of his lungs and ran out. When I show in Zurich, the gallery gets serious hate mail. They sent me some of it. During my 2009 show at Mitchell Algus,Jerry Saltz made it the Show Of The Week feature in New York Magazine. The gallery told me a LOT of people were showing up so i thought I should see for myself. It was true. While I was there, a woman came in with a toddler in a stroller. she parked him near the desk and a painting that featured a breast. she put her hands over his eyes and said, “Don’t look.”"

Autre: Where do you recommend hanging one of your works in the house?

Tompkins:Anywhere the collector wants to hang my work is fine with me.

Autre: What can we expect at your new show at 55 Gansevoort?

Tompkins:Kisses. Smooch.

Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Autre. Photograph by Nancy Oliveri. Betty Tompkins Smooch will be on view until December 15 at 55 Gansevoort Gallery, 55 Gansevoort St, New York

Languid Angels: The Photography of Matt Fry

February 21, 2014

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Matt Fry has been taking pictures for only a few years, but his photographs already have a stunning amount of depth and poetic introspection. Like angels trapped languidly in celluloid, Fry's subjects are idols of film's beautiful imperfection – overexposed, underexposed, light flares, polaroid tears and all. Fry, who is based in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, has perhaps found his calling with photography and, like an analog junkie holding on to a fading, beautiful dream, spends all his money on film. However, it might soon all be worth it. With fashion brands knocking on his door, Fry is a photographer on the rise. Pas Un Autre caught up with Fry for a very interesting tete-a-tete about his inspirations, aspirations and how he got into the photography racket in the first place. Read interview and see more photos after the jump.

PAS UN AUTRE: You said you have been shooting for only a couple of years – what brought you to photography?

MATT FRY: I started shooting in late 2009. I had a couple of tumblrs where I posted photography, and it was hard to find the style that I really liked. I decided, rather than just looking at photos, I wanted to create them, how I wanted them. I didn't have the money for a good digital, and I was picky, so I researched the best camera/lens combo that I could get for the least amount of money. So I went out and bought a Yashica Electro 35 and started shooting. Shortly after, my friend Melanie was kind enough to pose for me. Turned out people really liked what I did. I haven't stopped shooting since.

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AUTRE: Can you remember the first image you ever took?

FRY: I can't remember the specific image, but I do remember borrowing my mom's Canon AE-1 when I was 10. My brother and I had just had just learned how to jump our brand new dirt bike. We were so excited with our little jump; I think we were getting maybe about 7 inches off the ground. After a few jumps, I ran inside and grabbed my mom's camera. She loaded a roll for me and I went out and snapped a few shots of my brother hitting the "big" jump.

AUTRE: What goes through your mind when you look through the view finder?

FRY: That's a good question. Sometimes I think about my shots; whether I want to frame them higher or lower, whether the light is hitting just right, whether I should bracket or not. Then I check my meter, and slowly set the focus, and wait till I see something I like. But every now and then, you just hit that point where everything is perfect. I can't really describe it. Everything just works and I start snapping away, shot after shot. Nothing needs to be said because there's this connection and somehow we both just know. I hit the end of the roll, and race for another camera that might have film. Then scramble to rip open the next box.. Times like that, I barely remember what I did once I'm done.

AUTRE: Who are some of your biggest inspirations or influences?

FRY: I don't really have a big influence since I never really studied photography. I guess my biggest influence would be the cinema. I used to act, edit, and I directed a short film that I still haven't finished post on. Because of directing and editing, I would watch films that I liked, and I would save screen shots of my favorite scenes. I would study how it was lit, the colors, the cuts, the wardrobe and the framing. I guess I would say my biggest influence is cinematographer Conrad Hall. I love how Conrad would light and frame a shot and the brilliance behind the psychology that completely told a story without a word being said.

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AUTRE: You shoot all natural light and film - is there an aversion to digital and studio lighting?

FRY: I think a lot of that comes from the cinema as well. I really liked how Conrad would light by blowing out a window. Every shot he took was logical. You always new the source of the light, and it would be natural and gorgeous. Now I can't afford to light like that, so I use the sun. I would however like to get some strobes to start working with, because I don't like having to rely on a window. I think good lights would really set me free with my shoots.

As for digital, I want to like it. It would make my life much easier and keep more money in my wallet. Unfortunately every time I pick one up, it's not what I want. There is just something about using film. It's real and has a life of it's own. To me, it's like holding a book or using an ipad. They are both nice and serve their purpose, but you can't compare the two. It comes down to what you like and what your priorities are. I just can't bring myself to shoot digital. Hopefully one day I will find something I like with digital because every penny I have goes to film.

AUTRE: Whats next?

FRY: Seems like fashion is the next step. I've been working with Laura Sfez, the owner and designer of L'ecole des Femmes. She loves what I do and she let's me do what I want and use the models that I like. I remarked to her the other day about how every one of the models I have used for her line have been 5'2" or under. I love the freedom to not have to go with what is standard. I think my dream would be for fashion to be done with women of all types and sizes of women. There are so many beautiful girls out there with such character, why go with what everyone else uses.

Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre. Visit Matt Fry's website to view more of his photography.

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[INTERVIEW] REN HANG: CRUDE AND MYSTERIOUS SPIRITUALITY

January 3, 2014

originally published in 2011

What is there to say about photographer Ren Hang? His images spill into an obscene wonderland where basic questions become irrelevant and a twisted sense climbs over your flesh like worms on rotted meat. You’re glad they’re just photographs – like looking at the world face first against a closed window on the thousandth floor of some skyscraper. Based in Beijing, Hang is a new breed of 21st century Chinese artists riding the wave of modernization and cultural reawakening in China. But thats not saying we’re not lucky to experience Hang’s work – China is still vastly censorial and harsh against any material it deems slightly immoral. Hang’s work plays with fire, albeit delicately and at times tongue in cheek and never does it seem to shock for the sheer purpose to shock. Hang’s work is evidence of a deeply creative soul who bends erotic concepts like impermeable alloy into immaculate imagery rife with crude and mysterious spirituality. Hang’s subjects are dancers in a dangerous dance of lust and desire. In the following interview, Hang talks about shooting his lovers and friends and Chinese censorship.

AUTRE: What goes through your mind as you look through the view finder?

REN HANG: My eyes see only what is right in front of me.

AUTRE: You are based in Beijing – do you get any resistance to your work because of the nature of the content? Can you give any specific examples of how or when they tried to censor your work?

HANG: A lot of difficulties, you know, nudity is not published in China. An exhibition was canceled, someone spat at my work, cameras getting confiscated by the police, and almost going to jail. Although there are so many difficulties, I still like the Chinese.I like to shoot the face of the Chinese people, the body of the Chinese people, and close to me, easier for them to trust me. When I take pictures, I will forget all the difficulties.

AUTRE: Who are some of the subjects in your photographs?

HANG: My lovers…..my friends.

AUTRE: Whats next?

HANG: I’m printing two of my new books, completed in September, called a Damp – the other is called Mom I Hate Myself, But I Cannot Tell You.

You can visit Ren Hang’s tumblr and flickr pages to see more. Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper.

A Million Dots: An Interview with Yayoi Kusama

January 1, 2014

*In front of the statue of George Washington across from the New York Stock Exchange*

There is something impossibly magical about a whole world painted in polka dots. It’s the kind of world an obsessive-compulsive god might create on a mushroom trip. Obsessive, molecular, psychedelic – the world of Yayoi Kusama is an alternate universe of love and surreality connected by a million dots and nets – which she calls Infinity Nets – that seem to always catch her when her imagination flies too high. Kusama, who was born into a traditional upper-class Japanese family in 1929, has seemingly been misunderstood since birth. Plagued by crippling hallucinations and neuroses since childhood, she found refuge and solace in art. Falling into the currents of multiple art movements, between the waves of post-impressionism, minimalism and pop art, Kusama’s work has remained enigmatic, difficult to define; almost impossible to classify into one particular genre. Yet her dreams of becoming a famous artist would come true during the pivotal (and arguably most productive) years of her career, between 1958 and the late 1960s, when she became a central fixture of the explosive New York City avant-garde movement. She became close friends and collaborated with other important artists, such as Donald Judd and Eva Hesse, and exhibited alongside Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol (with whom, she implies in the following interview, she has had a somewhat contentious relationship). While she is most known for her dot paintings, which deal with themes of love and infinity, Kusama also experimented with other media such as sculpture, writing, film, installation, and performance during her years in New York. She also held “happenings” in the antiwar sprit of the times, many of them involving mass nudity in public places. Once, she even offered sex to Richard Nixon if he would end the Vietnam War. Perhaps because of a combination of exhaustion and disillusionment, Kusama eventually moved back to Tokyo, where she still lives in a mental institution close to her studio. Today, Kusama is as active and inspired as ever, and will be featured in two forthcoming major retrospectives – one at the Tate Modern in London and one in the summer of 2012 at New York’s Whitney Museum. Kusama is also collaborating with Marc Jacobs on a collection for Louis Vuitton. Famously elusive, Kusama was gracious enough to answer a few of our questions and share her important message with us all.

Autre: Can you remember the first time that you knew you wanted to be an artist?

Yayoi Kusama: I recall that when I was a little girl, about 10 years old, my mother, who was vehemently opposed to my becoming an artist, tore up a large painting I had just finished exerting my utmost strength and spending almost a month on.

Autre: You are most known for your intricate painting of dots – what is the psychological or spiritual significance of dots?

Kusama: Since childhood, I have been painting, for no special reason, numerous dots and nets, drawing from the hallucinations that seem to appear endlessly. I can’t explain why if you ask me.

Autre: What is the biggest misconception about your art?

Kusama: When I was in New York, I staged a large number of happenings and anti-art musicals. The shocking scenes that often appeared in those events caused quite a few people, including artists, to criticize and question my thoughts and beliefs as an artist.

Autre: I watched your documentary and there was a scene with you flipping through press about yourself and it seemed like you had some disdain for art critics - is there animosity toward the people who write about you and your art?

Kusama: There were times in the past that I got angry at some members of the press whose writings greatly disrupted my serious pursuit of art and my behavior as an artist

Autre: What was it like in New York during the 1960s with Andy Warhol?

Kusama: Andy and I appeared together before the media on several occasions to discuss art. I found his thoughts and behavior totally different from mine.

Autre: What was your first impression of Andy Warhol?

Kusama: I have never thought about it. I have treaded my own path developing innovative ideas for my artwork. Andy copied my ideas such as repetition and accumulation for his work.

Autre: What are some of your biggest inspirations?

Kusama: My ideas and creativity are the sources of inspiration for me.

Autre: What is one thing you'd like the world to know about you?

Kusama: I would like to dedicate to the whole world a great message. It is a message from Kusama who has struggled to survive as a human being and as an artist, and whose life has been brightly lit and strengthened by her pursuit of truth.

Autre: What does the future hold for Yayoi Kusama?

Kusama: It is my wish to leave a message to the whole world from the universe, a message of love and peace to the people of the world.

Text and interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for AUTRE ISSUE 002.

The Anatomic Explosion, Happening in Central Park

Brigette In Bloom: An Interview with Brigette Bloom

May 15, 2013

With her trusty sidekick Leo (her beloved dog), Bridgette Bloom is a child of the wilderness. With a feral spirit and the abandon of a forest sprite, Bloom follows in the great tradition of American wanderers – documenting with her camera all along the way. Bloom's photographs are like a beautiful dream in someone else's afterlife – a cinematic elysium that explodes in cloudbursts of life altering reminders to never waste even a single moment.

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PAS UN AUTRE: When did you first discover photography?

BRIGETTE BLOOM: I've loved pictures my whole life. sometimes i'd find strangers old family photos on the street when i'd walk home from school and was so fascinated by the things other people took pictures of. I love the idea of photography; how you can hold a moment in your hand, it's like time traveling!

AUTRE: Can you remember the first image you ever took?

BLOOM: The first photo i took was probably of a slug, or my eye or something, but the first one I can remember is when I was very little, I lined up all my trolls on the table and took a polaroid of them, I loved it so much. I took it with me to school in my backpack and would look at it throughout the day. Another early one is one I took of my old hamster, cotton ball, right after she bit my brother on the arm.

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AUTRE: You seem like a pretty fervent traveler - where are you now?

BLOOM: I moved to Portland a few months ago from Alaska, but now that spring is here I feel the need to get up and leave again. I always like to be on the move, passing through, getting my feet dirty. I've had so many beautiful, growing experiences through traveling, I see myself doing it forever.

AUTRE: Who is Leo?

BLOOM: My heart, my gentle but very strong willed dog.

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AUTRE: What are some of your biggest influences or inspirations?

BLOOM: I'm deeply inspired by animals. Everything about them is so mysterious and honest, I feel like an animal myself. But really, I am inspired by almost anything- looking into a strangers eyes, drinking fog, listening to the coyotes howl as I fall asleep, silence, intuition, eating good food, finding dog hair stuck to my shirt, courage, the seed of a peach, dripping honey, smile lines, blood, dreamers, cracked lips, whats natural and wild, how the body heals itself, raw feelings, the heart of the sun, self love, feeling connected to everything around you, i'm just in love with life.

AUTRE: Whats next?

BLOOM: I feel that I haven't even touched the surface of my photography yet, there is so much more to be created! Right now i'm just enjoying each day and we'll see what happens when it comes....

Follow Brigette Bloom's journey on her tumblr. Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre.

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Light as Air: An Interview with Gregory Aune

April 12, 2013

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Gregory Aune is a photographer and collagist based in New York whose images are both dreamy and classical. There is also a unique confidence in Aune's vision throughout his ouvra making his photographs seem both effortless and light as air. I caught up with Aune to ask him a few questions about his technique and inspiration behind his work.

PAS UN AUTRE: When did you first know you wanted to become a photographer?

GREGORY AUNE: I grew up in a small desert town in southern California. I was always drawing as a kid and actually wanted to be a illustrator when I grew up. So I always had a love for the visual arts I tried all aspects but the one I couldn't shake was photography, It was just something I fell in love with and just made the choice to grow within that, and will be growing until I die.

AUTRE: Can you remember the first image you ever took?

AUNE: I wish, I do however have my first roll of film that I developed myself. Its a collection of out of focus flowers.

AUTRE: What goes through your mind when you look through the viewfinder?

AUNE: Trying to place myself within the picture not trying to be a voyeur or hide behind the camera. I rather feel Im there with the subject, not just within the frame but the world that it lives in.

AUTRE: Who are some of your biggest inspirations or influences?

AUNE: There is quite a lot ranging from music, film, art, dance, close friends, lovers, broken hearts, nature and of course photography. It can be from the simplest things to the most damaging of things. I couldn't really pin point one person. I guess with in a commercial aspect I would say people like Paolo Roversi, Sarah Moon, Deborah Turberville purely because there artistry was translated and used in a commercial world...

AUTRE: What is your ideal subject to photograph?

AUNE: I have my list of people through out time that I would have loved to photograph but I always enjoy a nice roam in a forest or along the coast.

AUTRE: You are also a collagist – can you describe the aesthetic and inspiration behind some of your collages?

AUNE: I enjoy collage a great deal. With a lot of contemporary collagist not saying all but there all compiled on the computer which it doesn't feel right to me. I enjoy the hands on approach and rather cut things out with scissors and paste with glue. I guess my aesthetic would be loosely based on the principles of photography that your capturing a moment. I enjoy extremely surreal collagist or others that use shapes and textures to mold into each other, but with my own work I just want to add a little more to everyday situations. For example I did a whole series of birds fly over structures or landscapes, theirs not much to it but the idea of what it would be like to travel the way they do and see the things they see. As far as inspiration it comes from everywhere could be a broken heart or based on a drawing I saw and my interpretation of it...Inspiration comes from everywhere.

AUTRE: Analog or digital?

AUNE: The great question. I learned on film, was kind of the last generation of students to completely learn on film so it will always be a part of me. Also with anything it’s the hands on feeling, its romantic and exciting. Digital however, is great in its own right…the turn around in a work environment is quick but I feel lacks that excitement, also at times everything is realized in post. I like both for different reasons and Ill hold on to film as long as I can but wont be fighting digital either.

AUTRE: Whats next?

AUNE: I just plan to keep creating and keep moving forward. Growth within myself and my work.

See more of Gregory Aune's photography on his website. Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre

THE THINGS HE CARRIED: MAXIMUM HENRY COHEN

April 8, 2013

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“Living in New York City… has taught me to be extremely compact and intentional about the things I carry with me,” says Maximum Henry Cohen, the slight, unassuming 22-year-old mastermind behind Brooklyn-based leather goods brand Maximum Henry. “There’s a lot of baggage that we carry around with us out of habit.” Cohen is sipping Coca-Cola from a glass bottle, sitting in one of the sweeping factory windows of his Williamsburg waterfront studio, a loft space shared by a few other artisans and draftsmen. In the background, the dull hum of various machines cutting wood and shaping metal creates a strangely comforting white noise. Outside, a tranquil snow of the early-March variety falls on red brick scrawled with graffiti. One of Cohen’s goals in creating his own artisan leather goods brand was to downsize, to eliminate that unnecessary extra baggage, “to make something... that someone could carry and really consider their own.” Everything about Cohen—from his humble, down-to-earth personality to his streamlined workspace to his pared-down website to his handmade business cards— suggests an understated elegance. He pays the utmost attention to detail in the creation of his rustic yet sleek (and amazingly affordable) wallets and belts. “I was… that kid who would make duct tape wallets in the seventh grade and sell them to his friends,” Cohen remembers. Eventually, he set out to make the perfect leather wallet; a wallet that was just big enough to fit everything he needed but nothing more. Beginning in his bedroom with some scissors and a pair of discarded leather shorts that he rescued from their bleak thrift-store fate, he eventually moved into his living room and finally to his own studio, a modest space carefully curated in accordance with his taste for the basic and pure. A weathered steel architect’s lamp casts warm light over the dye-stained wood of his leatherworking table, over which a Singer sewing machine, a relic of vintage Americana, presides. Various tools are arranged neatly above the table, held upright by a homemade leather strap. He keeps his sheets of leather in a beautiful old footlocker and his finished belts, hung from hooks high above his drafting table, cast long shadows on the white walls of the studio. The objects Cohen crafts are simple, functional, full of charm and integrity—the kind of objects one wears or carries for years on end until those objects almost become a part of them. “I get the most inspired when I see something that’s been carried for more than half of someone’s life,” he says thoughtfully, “Once you carry something for a little while, you establish a connection to it.”

ANNABEL GRAHAM: Can you tell me about how you started making your own leather goods?

MAXIMUM HENRY COHEN: I’ve been making leather goods for... let’s see, five years now. It started when I would make duct tape wallets in the seventh grade and sell them to friends, but I don’t really count that.

GRAHAM: I remember those!

COHEN: I was the kid who would sell them to his friends, I made a lot of them. I stopped when I got a little more interested in film, stop-motion animation, and claymation, and skateboarding and things like that... until I started high school, which was actually a reform school in Montana for two years. I learned how to sew there, I made some pants and things like that, but I also made teddy bears and things to send home to my family. That’s where I really started to feel a little more comfortable with a sewing machine, creating things and turning flat fabrics into objects that had character and life and substance. My first leather wallet was in the summer of 2008. A friend of mine’s girlfriend was planning on donating a pair of leather shorts to Beacon’s Closet but she gave them to me instead, I just cut them up to keep the leather. I couldn’t find a wallet that was simple enough and didn’t have an obtrusive logo in it and I was going through a phase of just not wanting to wear or carry anything with anyone else’s logo because I didn’t feel like it reflected my own character. The only wallets that I could find that didn’t have a logo on them were really high-end, and it felt a little silly to me that the cheaper wallets were the ones that were overdesigned and too big… They were also covered in logos, while the really expensive ones were very simple. That was the premise, kind of my mission statement for my first wallet, to make something that someone could carry that had room to be really broken in and age well.

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GRAHAM: Did you make your first wallet for yourself or for someone else?

COHEN: I didn’t even know who it was for while I was making it, or what I was doing for that matter. I ended up giving away my first fifteen or so prototypes. I would carry it for a few days and if I liked it I would give it to a friend, then make myself a new one. I would do that with all different styles for a while. Sometimes I would make one and it would feel too big and clunky, or I would make one that would be too small, and couldn’t even fit money or a Metro card, so it would be pretty useless. Once I established the pattern that I still use today, I started taking it a little more seriously. The internal stitch was a big breakthrough for me. I realized that you could sew something inside out and then turn it outside in and the stitching would be on the inside, that way it won’t tear when you carry it through the years, because the stitches aren’t exposed. That was also exciting for me because I was still learning how to sew leather and I had to work around the fact that I couldn’t sew straight, the internal stitch hid my messy stitching until I learned how to control my sewing machine.

GRAHAM: When you started out, were you just making the wallets out of your home?

COHEN: Yeah, I was making them in my bedroom, with desk scissors, a box cutter and a ruler. There were leather scraps all over my rug, all over my desk, in my trash can, just everywhere, and it was really messy, but really fun and kind of... it felt really natural and homemade, because it was, entirely. In the beginning it was literally with things I found around the house, and I just figured things out as I went along. Then I moved into my living room and I had this little table, this really low table, and I was just hunched over it for what felt like five hours a day, just making all sorts of little things, little tobacco pouches, iPad cases, wallets, all sorts of stuff.

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GRAHAM: So you’re from New York.

COHEN: Yeah. I was born on the Upper West Side, and then when I was nine my little brother was born and we moved up to Westchester County. I remember I had never really walked in grass without shoes on before, because I was a city kid, and the whole suburban thing was a big transition. It didn’t really fit that well, I didn’t really enjoy it very much and I missed the city a lot. I moved back at my first opportunity after graduating high school early. I was able to live in Harlem and to work for my dad’s company for a few months, then I started college, and I’ve been back ever since.

GRAHAM: Is there anything in particular that inspires you in your work?

COHEN: I get the most inspired when I see something that’s been carried for more than half of someone’s life. My grandpa’s possessions really amaze me, as well as a few pieces I’ve found at flea markets and garage sales, things that have stood the test of time. Not just because they haven’t fallen apart, but because they haven’t been thrown away. Once you carry something for a while, you establish a connection to it. I’ve always been intrigued by people’s wallets, I found it was an interesting way to connect to people, because most people have a very intimate connection with their wallets. Sometimes there’s kind of a strange story behind how they got it, or a happenstance kind of thing, like, “Oh, I got this because it was seven dollars at a garage sale in Missouri,” or something like that. And then they end up carrying that for fifteen or twenty years, and it transforms into a totally different object with different meanings. I found that a lot of people were just looking for something that was really simple, and there were so many brands that were over designing that I just wanted to make something that is simple and functional.

GRAHAM: It’s interesting, you carry a wallet every day, it’s just this one thing that’s always with you, it almost becomes a part of you.

COHEN: Yeah, and it wears in in different spots, depending on how many cards you have in it, or how much cash you carry, or if you hold on to receipts. It wears differently if you keep it in your front pocket or your back pocket, it’s very personal.

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GRAHAM: How did you start making belts?

COHEN: It started with the first apprenticeship I did in the fall of 2010. I was working for a guy named Ryan Matthews, who is an oddities collector and leather smith. He collects taxidermy, old medical artifacts and some really beautiful antique lamps. He’s got the most incredible collection of weird stuff I’ve ever seen in my life. He used to do leatherwork for Polo and he would design belts for Double RL and Ralph Lauren vintage collection. He would make these Navajo recreation belts that would sell for something like fifteen thousand dollars at the Ralph Lauren store. He taught me how to dye and edge leather, how to attach buckles and to distress the leather to make belts that looked really old. My next apprenticeship was with this woman named Barbara Shaum, who is, I believe, 87 years old. She has a leather shop on East 4th street between 2nd and 3rd where she makes sandals and belts. It’s a really old-school business, and everything that’s made is made right there, either by her or by someone who works with her. There would be all these guys who would come in saying, “Hey Barbara, it’s time for me to get a new belt, it’s been forty years on this one,” and they would take off this decrepit, old, worn till the very end, belt… something that she had made in the 70s that had lasted 40 years. She taught me how to cut leather from the hide, how to mix dyes to get all different shades, how to attach buckles in a way that they’ll never fall off, and a bunch of other little tricks.

GRAHAM: You’re also interested in film, right?

COHEN: A little bit. My dad works in television and did throughout my entire upbringing, so I grew up visiting his production office on the upper west side all the time, and visiting his friends on sets in LA too. Most of my best friends now are people I met through the SVA film program. I’ve drifted in such a different direction from what they’re doing now, but because we have such different backgrounds, and we spend all day thinking about our specific crafts, we’re able to offer each other advice and insight from different standpoints. My friend Tom just started a production company called Yellow House Pictures, and they’re working on a lot of really cool, exciting projects. I feel like I’m been more in love with written stories than films specifically, just as a form of storytelling. I love reading and I love short stories... historical fiction is my favorite genre. If I were to get back into film I think it’d probably be from a writing standpoint. I dropped out of SVA after one year. I was really turned off because there were all these teenagers who had grown up in the suburbs and were so self-righteous and overly confident, myself included. [LAUGHS] I didn’t feel as though had enough life experience to be a story teller just yet, I was disgusted by how much money I was spending to not be taking school very seriously. I dropped out and started barbacking at a bar in Williamsburg called Hotel Delmano. I was working really hard mentally and physically, I would go home at the end of the day with some money in my pocket, feeling tired and good. It was really fun because while I was working I was also training to become a cocktail bartender. I was promoted to a bartender just after my 20th birthday. I’ve met more people through the bar industry in New York City than through any other social experience of my life. I was fortunate enough to work in three of the best bars in New York over a period of 4 years; Hotel Delmano (in Williamsburg), Elsa and Black Market (both in the East Village).

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GRAHAM: All of those bars have a really cool worn-in, vintage-looking aesthetic that sort of matches yours.

COHEN: That’s not by accident. “Objects with character” is sort of a consistent theme... They were all built acknowledging things that have withstood the test of time. A few of the owners of Hotel Delmano are metal workers and furniture designers that make the most beautiful things. They have been and continue to be huge role models for me. I would constantly notice new details about the bar that I had never seen before, like, “Oh my god, I didn’t even see that little chandelier that’s hanging in that corner, or the way that they painted that pipe, how it’s a slightly different color than the wall, or how they distressed the whole room to simulate aging and water damage.” It takes you to a different place. Seeing the way those people have turned making beautiful things into their full-time living is so inspirational, because that’s really all I want to do, is make things that people admire and feel good about.

GRAHAM: You live in Williamsburg now. Having grown up in Manhattan, what’s your feeling about Brooklyn?

COHEN: I’m so happy to be here. It feels like home to me. I’ve made friends with so many people around the neighborhood, from the guy who makes my sandwiches at the deli to the shopkeepers at all of the cool little boutiques around here. I know the buildings so well, and walking down the street I almost always run into someone I know. It has a neighborhood feel that makes me really comfortable. There are so many inspirational small businesses. Sometimes on Sundays I set up a table and sell wallets on the street, which has helped me a lot to see absolute strangers’ gut reactions to what I’ve been working on. After you spend X amount of hours on something, you grow attached to it, almost the way a parent feels about a newborn baby. It takes you out of your bubble. It really helps me to see how differently people react. My products’ quality is a reflection of my level of craftsmanship, even looking at things that I made six months ago makes me shudder sometimes, because my work is constantly evolving.

GRAHAM: Going back to literature and writing, who are some of your favorite authors?

COHEN: I love George Saunders, Denis Johnson. I would say E.L. Doctorow is my favorite author, and Ragtime is my favorite book. It’s set at the turn of the century, and it covers both fictionally and non-fictionally what was going on during that time period, which is my favorite type of book. Before that, I read The Cider House Rules, which I really enjoyed, but my friends would make fun of me for it, ‘cause I guess it’s kind of a girly story. [LAUGHS] I also like some more spiritual pieces, Siddhartha is really beautiful and influential, about how one can live with absolutely nothing. The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran, has been a staple in my life. I wouldn’t consider myself religious in any way, shape or form, but I do try to stay in tune with my own integrity and karma, and that was a guiding light for me in my late teens. My ideal day would be cooking my own breakfast, riding my bicycle to the studio, working and making things all day, hopefully meeting with some clients who are really excited about the products I’m making, eating a delicious dinner at one of the amazing places in the neighborhood then going to bed to do it all over again the next day. That’s pretty much it.

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GRAHAM: The books you named and even your ideal day all seem to go along with this theme of almost simple, Spartan existence—making things yourself and existing without all the “noise.”

COHEN: We’re living in the information era and there’s just so much everywhere, and it can be really overwhelming. To take a step outside of what’s going on and to look at what you connect with and why you connect with it... I don’t think you connect with things for the reasons you think you do right off the bat, there’s usually something underneath it. That’s what I strive for in my work, to make things that look upon first glance like something that’s almost normal, but then once you wear it and once it becomes a part of you, you fall in love with it. It has a much longer life span then something that is flashy and will end up falling apart one day.

GRAHAM: And the more you study one of your wallets, the more little details you notice.

COHEN: I tried to design them to be as simple as possible. I try to leave room for character to be developed, to just lay the foundation and then the rest is up to whoever wants to carry it. I have friends who have drawn on the insides of their wallets with Sharpies and things like that, and it’s the coolest thing because they’re taking something that I made and just transforming it into something that is theirs. I did start putting my brand on the on the inside of the wallets, but they are also available without them. I don’t want to throw my image in anyone’s face, you know, if they want it, they can have it and adapt it to their own style. The original concept for things without logos came from Hotel Delmano, which is really inspiring. They don’t even have a sign outside, they don’t have a business card, they don’t have coffee to go with their logo on the cup. There is no logo for Hotel Delmano. You can seek it out and go there, but you can’t take any of it out with you. That’s why people keep coming back, it’s because their product and experience stands on its own, not a commercial piece of branding. My favorite client is someone who has been referred by someone else who already has a piece and really appreciates it. I’d rather have those people tell their friends, or get them for their friends, instead of having advertising to bring in customers.

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GRAHAM: So you don’t want your face on a park bench anytime soon? [LAUGHS]

COHEN: [LAUGHS] No, definitely not. That’s kind of the wrong idea... At least for right now.

GRAHAM: What’s your goal for the future?

COHEN: I’ve been in a developmental stage for a really long time, making different prototypes and styles and colors, and I would really like to go into production mode and be able to make ten times what I’ve been making in the past, and expand to make new products... eventually even a clothing line. For the time being, I’m just focusing on nailing down my craft and making some things that feel like they can be taken through anything. I’ve been working on some guitar straps and some small bags. I’m also looking for retail stores outside of New York to carry my pieces. I’d really like to see the wallets around the world, in France and London and Italy and Australia. It feels really local right now. I’ve already gotten them in pretty much all of my friend’s pockets, so I’d like to start moving on to other likeminded people that I don’t know just yet. I’m also really excited about a couple projects I’m working on with my friends that are using their skill sets and combining them with the things I’ve been working on. I just shot a look book with my friend Dave, and my friend Alex is putting it together in a little printed book that I can pass around to friends and shops around the world. Basically, this craft is so exciting for me because it’s given me the excuse to base a profession around the things that I like doing and the people I like interacting with. And to me, that’s what it’s all about—work that doesn’t feel like work. I look forward to coming to my studio in the morning, which is a sign of moving in the right direction.

GRAHAM: If you could be anywhere in the world right now other than New York, where would you be?

COHEN: There’s this lagoon in Jamaica called the Blue Lagoon, which is fresh water that comes from the center of the earth, so they say, and it tastes amazing. Swimming there is one of my ideas of paradise. It’s pretty easy to think about being other places when it’s wintertime in New York. [LAUGHS] But whenever I leave New York, I find myself missing it after just a few days. I guess it’s another implication that I’m going in the right direction, missing my home when I’m on vacation.

GRAHAM: Is there a way in which living in New York City and growing up here has inspired or affected your aesthetic?

COHEN: Most people that live in other parts of the world travel everywhere they go in a car that allows them to just throw things everywhere, and they have more space than they know what to do with. Living in New York City on a budget has taught me to be extremely compact and intentional about the things I carry with me, the things I keep in my home. A lot of people’s wallets are bigger than they need to be, because they’re carrying things that they don’t even remember they have in there. It’s essentially baggage from the past that’s unnecessary and weighs you down. Because my wallet design is smaller than the standard one, it almost forces people to downsize, to simplify their lives. There’s a lot of baggage that we just carry around with us out of habit. It’s pretty important to have a streamlined existence [in New York], because extra things just drag here, and that’s why I like the “no frills” design policy.

Text and photography by Annabel Graham for Pas Un Autre. Visit the Maximum Henry website to view more.

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Camelops Femina in Dubai: An Interview with Olaf Breuning

March 18, 2013

Olaf Breuning is one of those mystical artists with a gift that is both totally innate and at the same time seems to involuntarily possess the artist – as if he were haunted by the immense creativity that overcomes him. This is evident in the art that he has created and presented in over 250 exhibitions, either solo or group, since his professional career started in the late 1990s. The Swiss-born, New York based artist, has created everything from creatures made out of rakes and cardboard, to films that explore the thin line between reality and fiction, bizarre photographic explorations, and installations made from kitchen appliances. Now Breuning brings his phantasmagorical world to Dubai for the very first time with a striking and magical exhibition at Carbon 12 gallery. “Camelops Femina,” as the exhibition is called, is a fictional exploration of pre-conceived ideas and iconography that digs back 10,000 years in history to excavate an extinct species of Camel that once roamed North America. The images, which were created exclusively for this exhibition, are distinctly Breuning in the quotidian and strange manner of the composition of the photographs where models are dressed like desert sheiks or Bedouin gypsies to represent the imaginary extinct species of camel. This wonderful exhibition is on view now at Carbon 12 in Dubai. Pas Un Autre got a chance to speak with the artist himself in the following interview.

PAS UN AUTRE: You’ve had over 250 exhibitions since the late 90s and this is your first in the Middle East – do you have any expectations – trepidations?

OLAF BREUNING: Trepidations? Uhh…. I will have them if there would be a reason! And expectations? No never have them. The most important for me is that I do an artwork I like. And so far I love the "Camelops Femina."

AUTRE: Your work experiments with, or is a reflection of, popular culture – what are some of your predictions as to where pop culture will go in the next 10 years?

BREUNING: Haha, pop culture...I am not sure…if it still exists…the art industry is pop culture itself. For example Andy Warhol’s work in the seventies was something different because the self-awareness of art itself was still very conservative, but today there seem to be no borders…just different strategies produced and read by different groups of people. Random, like our time in general.

AUTRE: What are some of your favorite inventions of the last 10 years?

BREUNING: To be able to challenge my small brain and come up with always new ideas responding to me and the time I live in.

AUTRE: Have you always want to be an artist? Can you remember the first time you said to yourself: “I want to be an artist”?

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BREUNING: I think I never said that, it was always a natural situation. Maybe I am just a natural self-centered person who cannot do anything else than speak about himself. No, no I am a modest person.

AUTRE: What is your ultimate goal as an artist – is there a specific message you want to communicate?

BREUNING: No, no message! I do art to go through this life on my terms. Sounds dramatic, but it is fun and addictive. I feel free as an artist and I hope I can do so until my last day.

AUTRE: Why is art important to society?

BREUNING: Well, I am not a politician, but would I would say: EDUCATION! Whatever that means, just to give different points of views to things.

AUTRE: Where do you find inspiration or creativity?

BREUNING: Mostly at Balthazar in New York, the breakfast restaurant I’ve gone to for 12 years from Monday to Friday. This is the time where I have my first coffee and make my drawings for new ideas.

AUTRE: Is art a product or can a product be art – or both?

BREUNING: Art is whatever you say is art....no borders, just a matter of definition.

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AUTRE: Your art deals a lot with the human condition in the 21st century – is there something unique about this time or perhaps different than other epochs?

BREUNING: Yes! THE INTERNET, it changed the way we see the past, the now and the future…so long we are online.

AUTRE: What can we expect from your show Camelops Femina at Carbon 12?

BREUNING: I show with my kind of humor and I hope people in Dubai like my humor.

AUTRE: What’s next?

BREUNING: One day New York, one day Toronto, four days New York, one week Japan, one week Switzerland....and after that I have to focus on a show in August at the Paul Klee museum in Switzerland.... have to make some art!

Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. Camelops Femina will be on view until April 30, 2013 at Carbon 12 Gallery, Warehouse D37, Alserkal Avenue, Street 8, Al Quoz 1, Dubai contact kourosh@carbon12dubai.com for all inquiries

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Southern Gothic: An Interview With Bradley Bailey

February 20, 2013

Visit artist and musician Bradley Bailey’s bandcamp page for his one-man band, oxymoronically called Platonic Sex, and you’ll find a single song tiled Sweet Nothing available for download for $1000. Watch a youtube video made last summer in Brooklyn and you’ll find Bailey playing a fifteen minute long, psychedelic and cacophonous set with a human femur. The Atlanta, Georgia based musician doesn’t have much of an online presence, but what he does have so far is a curious teaser for what might be to come, or not to come. Bailey seems content just figuring out who he is an artist and making music. Autre contributor Abbey Meaker got a chance to catch up with Bailey where he is currently in Atlanta thinking things over.

ABBEY MEAKER: How are you doing right now and where are you? Describe the environment in which you are sitting.

BRADLEY BAILEY: Things are this way and that, I am doing fine, I am sitting in a facet of the broken home of Atlanta, Ga. for a visit, figuring out where to go and what to do with myself next

MEAKER: How old were you when you were compelled to write your first song and what were the circumstances?

BAILEY: I wanted to be a songwriter for as long as I can remember, when I was a little child I loved pretty much all music, practically absent of discernment as children can often be... I would often come up with songs in my head and always write and improvise a little bit on my grandparents piano while visiting, until getting SHUSHED! It was when I was ten I began writing songs and really learning the guitar, bass and keys.

MEAKER: How would you describe the music that you're making now? Has it changed over the years?

BAILEY: The music I'm making now is and has always been eclectic, though it has undergone many twists and turns, many things have remained the same since always, some sounds and emotions continue to show through many very contrasting styles... The difference is that now I feel I have reached and transcended many of the the goals I've had in the past... Where some things were desired they are now manifested and enjoyed... For example the inspiration to really express the vast music that exists within a single sound used to be a fleeting and very personal accomplishment at best, mostly a dream, however now I have developed methods of expressing that in ways I only hoped and dreamed I could... Namely what I've been doing with strings and objects...

MEAKER: Is there a particular recent performance that stands out as being more interesting than others? If so, why?

BAILEY: Lately what stands out as being more interesting than others would be the bone song... I've been bowing strings with a human femur. I started with some kind of animal bone but the size, shape and weight were not ideal. The human femur is the perfect bone for it functionally and also provides for a profound example of the fact that music is vibration and with its creation carries with it destruction, its a very natural phenomena, it courses through us at all times and extends beyond our very perception and sensory experience of it.... In performance I have generally been using an acoustic guitar because I like to keep the method organic, keep the effect of it unaffected by even amplification and at the same time non verbally express that no effects are being used, no tricks, which people still think there are unseen amplifiers and effects... Though many wild sounds can be made with this technique I keep it simple and repetitive live, very zen, as I often do alone, expressing how the dynamics of the method can change so vastly in doing so, that one thing can sound so many different ways, actually unearthing the many sounds within a sound that this method can provide... I gently rub the bone on the strings in one place a certain way that makes it vibrate, then I focus on maintaining and expanding that vibration... In doing so, just one string can move through a great spectrum of notes tones and sounds and harmonize with itself... with the 6 strings of a guitar I can even get limitless orchestrics, choirs of shifting harmony that really sound like voices to the naked ear... and because the technique is so delicate, the very subtlest change in motion changes it, thus it becomes like a narrative of my very experience, my very physical emotion, its like improvising from the soul but having a whole ensemble of selves following every nuance of conduction... its very execution is very personally expansive and rewarding. I've been experimenting with friction in music since my teenage days and i now feel it has more than paid off creatively and existentially... I simply discovered it while doing what I do at a friends house that had some animal bones... I have discovered many special ways of making music using objects on strings, the bone just works so well. Also shells work very well in their way, they have an amazing percussive element with their textures and resonate like bone because I suppose the material is practically the same, but the size, shape and weight are not as dynamic... Clay and such materials wail, theyre really hot and easily screech, but they wail... I imagine there are some stones and crystals that will work as well as bone, probably selenite... that will be my next venture with it.

MEAKER: Do you have any philosophies - spiritual or otherwise - that influence your music or any other medium you might use to express yourself?

BAILEY: There are so many inspirations that influence all of my mediums of expression, philosophical, existential, even spiritual... Most simply and basically the notion that whatever medium it is bears wonderment beyond what one could ever perceive, as do our very selves and I like to treat them as such, purely as such, solely undergoing the wonderment of what they are, enjoying them, not taking them for granted, always a gift, of expression, joy, healing, catharsis, insight, interest, mystery, twerk, etc... and total wonderment.... And the notion that we can really have a very great time together as people, ya know... It boils down to expressing inspirations of how manifesting a very great time in this crazy world and actually undergoing the experience of its wonderment even beyond only a contenting extent is entirely plausible... Within that, much philosophy, spiritual and otherwise is to be expressed...

MEAKER: When we spoke, you said that "Sweet Nothings" is a sketch - do you know what you plan to do with the song?

BAILEY: "Sweet Nothings" was a sketch when I recorded it, I hadn't even played it all the way through before I recorded it but I like the sound of it so I kept it. Fresh, raw, new material, when undergone willingly and passionately always has substance that can't be found further in its evolution and I, as many others do, like to capture that and often prefer it, though there is much to be had with polished work as well that can only be achieved through its evolution.... "sweet Nothings" was released on the album "Advances" by "Platonic Sex", an ongoing and thus far very loose and open ended project of mine... "Advances" was a very loose and open ended, somehwhat experimental project of an album that I felt was good for such a raw performance as "Sweet Nothings". It was released on Atlanta's "Big Blonde Records" alongside a diverse mix of awesome Atlanta musicians. I'm touching the album up a little bit and putting it up online soon and printing CDs... As far as what's to come with the song, it will undergo various arrangements that I have conceived in my mind and also have yet to imagine... The first verse, which is in the format of simple love poetry, changes often where the last verse always stays the same "We're always whispering sweet nothings... and little phrases we repeat ... how could they be sweet if they are nothing? How could be nothing if they're sweet?"

MEAKER: Any upcoming projects or plans for an album?

BAILEY: I have so much material and so many albums and projects planned out in my mind, circumstances have been so very difficult, I've hardly done any of it, that's a whole collection of long stories.... I hope you can expect a broad spectrum of things....

MEAKER: Where can we hear more of your music or see you perform?

BAILEY: I hardly have anything up online right now, mostly its just random things people have captured and posted on youtube, check out "Bradley Bailey-Bone Song" on you tube or "Platonic Sex" on bandcamp for now and hopefully in the next year I will have more material available... In the meantime I play live in many facets regularly and randomly around the US.

Intro text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper and interview by Abbey Meaker. First three photographs by Bradley Bailey. Photo below by Ryan Callahan

ART / FASHION/ CULTURE / MUSIC / FILM

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